High Peak Liberal Democrats

Lib Dems must lead the fight against the calamity of Brexit

Whatever motion we debate at Conference next month, we already know that the majority of us oppose Brexit. We all need to persuade the people around us of what a developing calamity it is. We also need to take the lead nationally. No new party is required to campaign on this: the Brexit Exiters are us.

But we need to shout about it, not leave it to retired government ministers and would-be leaders from other parties to grab the limelight.

For the country is in dire need of Brexit being called off.

Poverty worsens. Austerity bites harder as living standards sink. Health services decline with too few doctors and nurses. Councils struggle to keep meeting local needs, Young people lack decent rental accommodation at an affordable price. Working people with zero-hours contracts or temporary jobs can't pay all the bills, fall into debt and resort to food banks.

Yet we have a disunited government which, so far from tackling these ills, is almost entirely occupied with the enormous, wasteful task of trying to accomplish a Brexit which will make conditions worse. Negotiations with the EU on all fronts are stalled - rights of citizens living abroad, the Irish border, the size of the bill to be paid, and future trade relations.

As for the Labour opposition, with a better will to tackle the ills but no power to do so, it is no less divided on the terms of Brexit yet firmly keeps step with the government on the necessity of it.

So it is up to us to show unity and passion now in asserting the essential conditions of any Brexit and preferably of no Brexit, with the consent to be obtained not only of parliament but of the people.

But we haven't done it yet. Here are two contrasting statements referring to Lib Dem policy on Brexit made a short time before the general election.

1. "Let me make one thing very clear. Brexit will happen. Nothing can stop that. Of course I campaigned and voted to Remain. But we're a democracy. We must abide by the referendum result. But we must also take care. Cornwall is at risk of being the biggest loser from a self-harming, shambolic Brexit."

2. "I keep reading that their (the Lib Dems') 'hardline stance' on Brexit is 'alienating voters'. What hardline stance? Where is the tub-thumping for free movement, so vital for urban prosperity? Where is the impassioned defence of EU subsidies, so vital to rural areas? The Lib Dems' problem is not that they have made this election a re-run of the referendum. It is that they are afraid of doing so in case they lose it again."

The first statement was in a letter sent to voters by Andrew George, Lib Dem candidate and former MP for St Ives. In the same letter he wrote that "This election is about the future of our NHS." Andrew wasn't re-elected, though he came close.

The other statement is from an article by Hugo Rifkind in The Times on May 23, under the heading, 'Lib Dems are about to go down in flames'. The sub-heading read, 'A third party wins voters by offering an alternative vision or by inspiring protest but Farron's team can't manage either.'

Whatever the particular situation in St Ives, I believe we should indeed have campaigned more strongly and persistently against Brexit in the general election. A firm united stance, emphasising the need to stay in the EU internal market and the customs union, would surely have shown up the two-facedness of the Labour party and persuaded more Remain voters to vote for us.

The need for the country to stay close to the EU which we did not sufficiently convey in the election campaign must be strongly asserted now. The need is urgent - for Cornwall, for Northern Ireland, for Scotland and for England and Wales. Because we have a British government which fiddles while our country shrivels.

* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Lib Dems and an activist in the West Cumbrian constituency of Copeland and Workington.

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